Creative industries added £80bn to the UK economy in 2013

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Jessica Morris

This year will be a bumper year for the UK economy (source: Getty)

Movie stars, music mavericks, models and actors are all helping the UK economy sparkle, with creative industries contributing an all time high of £76.9bn to the UK economy.

The creative economy grew three times faster than the economy as a whole, with gross value surging 9.9 per cent, according to the report released by the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation yesterday.

Overall the gross value added by creative industries has soared by 15.6 per cent since 2008, surpassing an increase of 5.4 per cent for the UK economy as a whole.

Creative industries employed around 1.71m people in 2013, accounting for 5.6 per cent of total UK jobs. This is set against an already strong jobs market, with the unemployment rate beating expectations.

But for anyone who holds ambitions to work in the creative industries, which ones would be their best bet? In 2013 advertising and marketing alongside IT, software and computer services employed the most people.

The survey used a generous measure for the creative economy, including support jobs and creative jobs in creative industries as well as creative jobs outside of it.

Creative industries were categorised as advertising and marketing, architecture, crafts, publishing, design as well as film, TV, radio and photography.

This broad definition also included IT, software and computer services; museums galleries and libraries and music, preforming and visual arts.

"The UK's creative industries are recognised as world leaders around the globe and today's figures show that they continue to grow from strength to strength," said Sajid Javid, secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

"They are one of our most powerful tools in driving growth, outperforming all other sectors of industry and their contribution to the UK economy is evident to all."

The new Bond film Spectre, gory television series Game of Thrones and the first illustrated editions of the Harry Potter books are all expected to boost the roaring creative economy this year.